Translator of 3Dmax and Maya

I am going to make this project to study the difference between interfaces of 3Dmax and Maya. The objective is to translate all the information about rigging I learnt into the Master degree and be able to make the same thing into 3D max. And alto make this information online for personal use and also open to the public who wants to learn a bit more about 3D ant differences between these two interfaces.

-RIGGING

Basics

Joints - Maya

Joints in Maya are used to build our skeleton for our character or any thing you want to animate with them. The advantage of Maya outliner makes you can quick change the hierarchy of those bones, but the disadvantage is about changing the direction of these joints after building the skeleton for the fist time, cause if you change one bone you would need to reorient the joints with lookAt constraints, big pain. TIP: Make the skeleton on the right position at the first attempt, you can use Locators and snap those joints

Bones - 3Dmax

The main tool for rigging in 3Dmax are called bones, those are the same thing as Joints in Maya, they have different display and for some people look nicer, you can use bone fins to make easier the skinning process, this create you an idea of the first skin weight it would have. Advantage of 3dmax bones is you can skin faster than Maya default skinning and you can colour them, this does not work in Maya 2011 and 1012, also you can reorient and edit the bones at very easy way. Disadvantages, you cannot use the outliner to change the parenting of these bones, at least I didn´t learn how to do it as fast as you can do in Maya

Locator - Maya

One of the most used tools on Maya for rigging are called Locator, is used to pivot our bones - in Maya called Joints - and also constraint these bones to our locator to orient and solve offsets into the rigging process. But also Groups in Maya are used to solve these offsets

Point Helper - 3Dmax

When you want to make Rigging in 3Dmax, you have to know, they works exactly the same way Locator are working, they also looks the same but is more common into tutorials to shape like a box and 3Dcross at same time. They solve offsets and you constraint bones to these helpers. In 3D max groups are not used for rigging.

Display/Render Layers

Display and Render layers work at the exactly same way as 3Dmax do, but the only thing you should know. The display of this part of the interface is placed at the bottom. (At this old version you can see all different layers and those squares you can click) The advantage is you can find it very quickly but the disadvantage is you don´t know at first instance what are you doing, there is no further explanation, is brief, you just start clicking until you get usued to those. This could be advantage, but is not for people who are getting started in Maya

Manage Layers

Into 3Dmax you can open this window and start managing layers as the same way Maya does, but with the advantage you have a big description and have more options. Disadvantage, the display is not as fast as you can get into Maya, but I think is more friendly way to show layers. The thing I dont like about this is just the name. Manage Layers? why? you could use the name Layer control or I don´t know... well, it's just a name. No big deal.

Controllers Maya

The nice thing about Maya and controllers are the way to select them, when you make a setup in Maya you can disable to select any other thing, just Splines and then you quickly select between your controller or your bones, or helpers...

Controllers 3Dmax

In 3Dmax you can get a better and nice spline display for your controller and are used geometry and splines to create the controllers, because you can put them into a layer to display just them. In 3dmax you can create better looking splines faster, but not select them as you can do in Maya.

Set-up Rigging Connections

Connection Editor

Connection Editor is used to connect direcly the input and output between objects, is a really fast way to link one and other object. When I used for the first time I thought was complicated, cause you can display all the information from the rendering, all the hypershade tools you can manage into this tool, so It seemed really complex. but then I saw how 3D max works and I think I prefer the connection editor in Maya.

The bad thing in Maya is.. you cannot do scripting, you would need to use nodes at the Hypershade for making the setup on your character rig, and nodes are a bit coplicated thing in Maya, because they show all the complex stuff on this program, in the same pain way you can be stressed by the wiring parameters tree you can be stressed about Hypershade in Maya

Hypershade

If you want to make somebody to give up with Maya you just have to show him the hypershade, it's very complex stuff if you just try to understand by yourself. For a nice medium-high level setup you would need to use the hypershade and learn how to connect RGB channels of some multiply and IF nodes to XYZ channels. And this is heavy stuff for noobs.

Expression Editor

Expression Editor in Maya is used to make Expressions as the same way Expression Controler works in 3dmax. It is more used to auto stuff you want to set into your scene as... if some object is moving, you need other to follow, or rotate with some path differences, multiply distances, like chain reaction or stuff like that, some faster way than using Hypershade and connection editor.

Wiring Parameters

Wiring Parameters works as Connection Editor does, with the difference, you can make scripts direcly from this wiring display, in Maya you have to open the hypershade or script editor to do it. The ugly stuff about wiring parameters in 3dmax are these never ending trees and the name... I am wondering if Maya kept all the cool names. also when you want to open the wiring parameters you have to open a sequence of name displays into the viewer, ugly.

Expression Controller

If you want to make a small expression to control your bones, you would need to use this controller in 3dmax, is used at the same way Hypershade works, but Hypershade in Maya is more visual, used into everything, the equivalent in 3dmax for setup is this expression controller where you build your variables and program by yourself the stuff you need.

Script Controller

Script controller is used to make an small script, is almost the same thing about Expression Controller. You just use them into different ways, but I really cannot tell you advantages or disadvantage between choosing one or another, I just started with pro-tools in 3Dmax not so much time ago.

There is a big difference between 3Dmax and Maya, you just cannot say the interfaces are equal because they are not, but these make the exactly same stuff. You can try to do some rigging in Maya and also 3Dmax and you would need to use different paths, some similarities exist between them, but you need to know, you cannot be guided by the name. Just let see the same example.

Commands Mel and Scripting

Script Editor

Here you have the exactly same action between Maya and Max, everytime you make some action at your 3D program you can see the printing of your machine, and create new cool buttons on your tool bar, exact same was as Max

Max Script Listener

The difference between Maya an Max on this action.. is almost nothing, just you make toolbars outside of your default display and Maya have this Custom toolbars integrated into his own default display.Nothing more to say about that. Just.

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